Microsoft Kills CodePlex, Admits Defeat to GitHub

If you’re hosting open-source code on Microsoft CodePlex, we have bad news: the company has announced it will shutter the service later this year.

In October, CodePlex will switch to read-only. Come December 15, it will be shut down completely. Stragglers will be able to download their code from an archive, though Microsoft recommends you sort that out sooner than this autumn.

For most, GitHub will be the go-to hosting spot for open-source projects. Microsoft knows as much, so it has worked with GitHub to create a migration tool, which will be launching “soon”:

We’re providing two first-class ways to get your data out of CodePlex. First, we’ve partnered with GitHub to provide a streamlined import experience to help you bring your CodePlex source code, license, and documentation to GitHub. A migration tool for issues is also in the works and will be available soon – we’ll update this blog post with more details when it’s available.

BitBucket and Visual Studio Team Services also have migration tools for CodePlex.

If you have other people accessing your code, CodePlex also has a new “I’ve moved” banner available, so those users aren’t met with a dead URL. That banner serves as a gentle reminder to users that they should start working on your code via GitHub rather than CodePlex.

Via a blog post announcing the shutdown, Microsoft corporate vice president Brian Harry wrote: “Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of amazing options come and go but at this point, GitHub is the de facto place for open source sharing and most open source projects have migrated there.”

Microsoft was never really sold on CodePlex. A 2016 study from GitHub shows Microsoft as the most popular company on GitHub, with over 16,000 contributors. Its Visual Studio IDE is one of the most popular repositories on GitHub, with just under 6,000 contributors.

This comes on the heels of Google refreshing its open source site, which points exclusively to GitHub repositories. Google also shut down its code hosting site, Google Code, in January of 2016. You win, GitHub.